The present invention relates to firearms. More specifically, the present invention relates to a firearm which is a manually operated single shot firearm by design but maintains the aesthetics of a semi-automatic firearm.
With respect to firearms today, particularly as to rifles there exists two general types of actions for extracting and inserting cartridges out of and into the bore of a barrel. These actions include generally a manual or bolt type action where in a bolt is manually manipulated for each shot or a semi automatic action wherein once the rifle is loaded with a cartridge in the chamber a cartridge is extracted and another cartridge is reinserted upon each pull of the trigger. The semi-automatic firearm category may further be broken down into the types of mechanisms which are used to provide the energy necessary to extract and insert cartridges into the barrel bore. These types of actions include blow-back type mechanisms which utilize the recoil energy of firing of the cartridge in order to force the bolt of the action back to extract the cartridge and reinsert a new cartridge in the chamber. A second type of action is a gas operated type mechanism wherein gases from firing of the cartridge are utilized to force the bolt back for extraction of a spent cartridge and reinsertion of a live round in the chamber.
The use of gas operated semi-automatic actions has become commonplace in firearm design today. This has been a result of military research and development of gas operated fully automatic rifles. Gas operated systems lend themselves to useful life in this regard. Thus the advance of the military design of firearms has continued to produce new designs of weapons which allow increased rates of automatic fire and improved lightness, reliability, and other design features. The existence of these features have found desirable applications in the semiautomatic versions of these rifles which are sold in the civilian firearms market. A particular example of this is the Kolashnikov family of rifles, of which many copies have been made throughout the world. Because of the simplicity of the design and inherent reliability, among other features, these rifles have become popular amongst sportsman and gun aficionados in recent years. With the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and trade barriers falling in Eastern Europe, the availability of semi-automatic versions of Kolashnikov AK-47 style rifles have reached the civilian market at reasonable prices with extremely high quality. A particular example of this is the Bulgarian made SA-93 available from Sentinal Arms, Detroit, Mich.
Although the popularity of such rifles has increased in recent years due to the ready availability of low cost ammunition and low cost rifles. The political climate has been such that these rifle have been under attack by legislative action and the like. Thus while most bolt action and semi-automatic hunting rifles have features which have resulted from military designed rifles such as the Kolashnikov variety, the militarized looking versions and semi automatic versions in particular have been under recent attack and may soon be outlawed. Whereas, the bolt action rifles which utilize the same calibre ammunition as the semi-automatic versions have not been under attack and appear to be politically acceptable. Because of the popularity of the Kolashnikov line of rifles, it has been desirable to produce a rifle which is more politically correct in today's climate, but which retains the overall aesthetics of the well known Kolashnikov rifles to retain its appeal to modern day sportsman.